Too Quick!
by BlameItOnTheNaquadah
Summary: The moral of this story is - space pirates and household appliances don't go well together. Another tale from the 'Too...' series.


**Too Quick!**

"Oh dear." Vala froze momentarily before biting her lip, eyes huge. "Oh dear. Dear me."

She lifted the pipe of the vacuum cleaner and peered down it, tentatively. There was no sign of what she wanted to find there. She shook the pipe – no sound of rattling emitted from within.

"Crap."

Dropping the pipe, Vala knelt down and looked intently into the clear cylinder of the pull-along cleaner. She tilted the machine, rolled it from side to side, eventually giving it a prolonged, furious shake.

Ah! There it was! Tapping on the side of the plastic she caught a glimpse of it, right there inside. Thank goodness!

Vala leaned back on her haunches, aware for the first time that her hands were actually trembling and her mouth dry. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

_Now,_ thought the ex-pirate, _how do I remove the dratted little thing from it's plastic prison?_ She frowned, not having had much interaction with vacuum cleaners in any of her previous careers.

Clambering to her feet, Vala looked around Daniel's office. Nothing. All he kept around him were dull books and boring artifacts and papers. No "antique busting" implements of any kind. She tutted and tossed her hair over her shoulder.

_If you didn't have so much crap in here, Daniel darling, then I wouldn't have hovered up you're stupid piece of junk in the first place!_ Vala thought crossly.

Walter's voice broke over the tannoy. "Scheduled wormhole in five minutes. General Landry to the gate room."

Oh, damn, damn and double damn! Five minutes – then maybe half an hour or so to get through Carolyn's infirmary checks. Vala yanked out her purse and rummaged through the bundle of key cards within, before grabbing one and running like a dervish for the armory.

A few minutes later and she was back, a Zat stuffed unceremoniously down the front of her BDU pants.

_Lucky that I'm not Daniel,_ she chuckled to herself, pausing for a moment. _That would have been really uncomfortable – a Gou'ald weapon caught round your wedding tackle!_

Vala laughed out loud. _The Tau'ri have such funny words for parts of their anatomy. Of course, generally the airmen on base call that particular area of the body their –_

The wormhole alert went off again. "Scheduled wormhole in one minute." Walter sounded positively gleeful, almost as if he knew how much trouble Vala was about to get into.

"For cryin' out loud!" she growled, doing more than a passing impression of Jack O'Neill. Then she prepped the Zat and fired it straight at the unfortunate vacuum cleaner.

\- o - o - o - o - o - o -

Daniel entered his office approximately forty five minutes later, to find Vala standing in front of his desk, hands behind her back, looking decidedly guilty. There was a pause.

"Hi," he said, eventually.

"Oh, hello Daniel!" Vala beamed the megawatt, face splitting smile at him. "Fancy meeting you here!"

A beat.

"This is my office, Vala." The archaeologist lowered his rucksack wearily to the floor.

"Oh, yes, of course! That's right. I – um, I thought that I was in Samantha's lab for a minute." She shook her head. "Silly me."

Daniel looked at her as if she'd gone wonko. "I beg your pardon?" He moved over towards the large store cupboard, dragging his luggage along the floor behind him.

"Wait!" Vala shouted, even louder than she'd meant to.

Daniel stopped in his tracks. Silence.

The space pirate swallowed. "Um… I've been behaving very well in your absence, darling." She turned up the wattage on her smile. "I've done all of the translating and cataloging that you left for me. Every single piece of it. Absolutely. And I've tidied your office and I – I – I helped Sam when she popped back for a day or two and, and, and – I – I – um…"

"What have you done?" Daniel's voice broke into her manic chatter. He frowned, dropping his rucksack to the floor with a bump.

There was a startled pause.

"I haven't done anything." Vala tried the smile again, but it didn't quite seem to stay in place. "Really."

"You won't mind if I open this cupboard then?' Interest piqued, Daniel indicated the cupboard behind him with a tilt of his head.

"Of course. I mean, not at all. You go right ahead and open it. You do that. Only – I, er – I think that I just heard General Landry call for you."

"Really?" Daniel's hand was on the handle now. "I didn't hear anything."

He twisted the small brass knob. Hearing the latch click, Vala gulped and screwed her eyes shut.

"Daniel…" she whispered, then bit her lip. _I'm SO going to get into trouble for this_.

There was a short pause, before Daniel answered "What?"

Vala jumped slightly and opened her eyes.

The archaeologist had moved to stand right in front of her. He studied his team mate carefully.

"I…oh dear, it wasn't really me at all, it was the stupid Vacuum, well a combination of the Vacuum and my six – well my six, and the Vacuum and your desk.."

"Vala!" Daniel tilted her chin up with gentle fingers. A tiny smile tugged at his mouth. "Confess!"

Sighing, Vala regretfully removed her chin from his clasp and moved to the cupboard. "Prepare yourself, darling," she warned him, before opening the door, to display a sorry looking vacuum cleaner that had clearly, at some point in it's life, been on fire.

"What on earth..?" Daniel tugged the sad piece of equipment into the center of his office. "What did you do?"

"Well," Vala's hands flapped as she launched into a full on account of her misfortunes. "You know how you always complain that I make so much mess? With my I-pod, and curlers, and magazines and hair clips and things? Well, I thought that before you came back I'd tidy up for you. So that your office was all spack and spin for when you came home. I took all of my things and put them away in my room, and I dusted your shelves, and I lined your books up all neatly, and then I thought that I'd get the Vacuum cleaner out and it was all going really well – really well Daniel! And then the stupid machine got stuck under the chair, so I pulled it – hard – and that made me wobble a bit, and my backside knocked your desk. Well, you know that delightful little trinket, in the metal egg cup thingy? Well, it sort of fell onto the floor and before I knew what had happened – well, Daniel, I'm afraid to say – it went up the vacuum pipe."

A beat.

"Spick and span." Daniel said automatically. Another long beat, as he looked somewhat bemusedly at the poor old vacuum. "And – it caused a fire? Inside the cleaner? The artifact broke the vacuum?"

"Ah – no." Vala dropped her head slightly, looking contrite. "I'm afraid that was me too. I shot it."

"You shot the Vacuum cleaner?" Daniel said, incredulously. "Why?"

"Well, I was hoping that I could break the cylinder and get your little whatnot out. Then I was going to put it back so that you wouldn't find out. But all that happened was it overloaded the stupid machine's electrics and it exploded." Vala glared at the unfortunate piece of equipment. "Your Tau'ri appliances really are rubbish, darling. What?" She gazed mystified at the archaeologist, who was laughing.

Daniel swallowed his chuckle down. "Why didn't you just open the catch on the cylinder and get it out that way?"

A pause.

"You can do that?" Vala wrinkled her nose adorably. "Sorry."

Daniel shook his head, still grinning. "What did you shoot it with?"

"A Zat from the armory."

"You put it back yet?"

Vala shook her head. "Not yet." She pulled the gun out of one of the large pockets on her BDU pants.

"Don't let General Landry catch you with it." Daniel frowned, and took hold of her left hand, which was clenched in a fist. "What have you got hiding in there?"

Vala opened up, in the center of her palm was the small round artifact which had caused all the mayhem in the first place. It was broken into two pieces. "I'm really very sorry Daniel." The space pirate looked up at her team mate sadly. "I didn't do it on purpose. I'm so sorry."

Daniel paused before gently cupping her cheek in his hand.

Her sweet face looked back at him, slate blue eyes troubled, mouth trembling.

"Vala, it doesn't matter." Uncharacteristically, Daniel slipped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. Strange feelings affected him sometimes, when he found himself confronted with the alien's beautiful countenance. Made it hard for him to maintain the 'grumpy old man' persona which he had perfected so well over his years at the SGC.

Vala laid her head against his chest, depositing the broken relic into his other hand.

"And thank you," Daniel smiled, looking down at her. "For trying to clean up."

Tilting her face up towards him, Vala bit her lip. "You're welcome," she said.

Daniel cleared his throat and gently disengaged himself from the space pirate. "And look –." Moving to a drawer, he pulled it open to reveal an identical relic, with it's still intact stone. "We've found about six of these things over the years, so not to worry." He took out the stone from the other device and tossed it to her.

"What does it do?" Vala held the gem up to her eye and squinted through it.

Daniel pushed the drawer shut with his hip. "It's Ancient, we think, not Gou'ald. It removes any obstacles in your path. For instance, if you were attacking an enemy stronghold, and you used this, it would remove all barriers or walls between the bad guys and yourselves. You have to be within about twenty feet, that's the only thing, but it's fairly useful in a close combat situation."

"And how does it work?" Vala began to fiddle with the two pieces of the device.

"If you turn the stone one way, and the cup that it lays in another, then it will – VALA!" Daniel's clothes disappeared in a flash, leaving him gloriously and completely stark staring naked. "Vala, hell's teeth! Dammit woman, Vala!" He couldn't even form sentences as he sprung with considerable agility across the room to grab his jacket from the back of a chair. Wrapping it speedily about his lower person, he grabbed at the device, mortified.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Vala backed away, face full of remorse. A twinkle in her eye however suggested that she found the unexpected view quite scintillating. She pushed the device at the puce faced archaeologist. "I suppose that the device must view clothing as a – a barrier of some kind." She couldn't help it, and giggled loudly.

"Do you think so?" Daniel, furious, and with the device now in his own clasp, twisted the jewel at the center.

Vala's clothes vanished before he'd even finished turning the gem.

"Well I never." Remarkably unconcerned, the space pirate spun slowly around, arms out at her sides, devoid of all clothing. Even the elastics from her pigtails were gone, leaving her beautifully long, black hair hanging down her back. She grinned widely, looking over her shoulder at Daniel as she twirled.

"Oh God." The archaeologist's hope at delivering some comeuppance to his team mate had spectacularly backfired. He turned, looking in vain for some scrap of clothing to cover Vala, who was enjoying every moment of the situation.

"Yes darling," she mused, prowling around the office. "The artifact must perceive our clothing as an obstacle – to what now, do you suppose?"

She moved closer, hips swaying, smoothing her hair down over her very nice bust like some reincarnated Lady Godiva.

"Here," Daniel tossed a T shirt over from his back pack. "Do something with that." A towel followed. "Wrap that around your waist." His hands were shaking and there was an unexpected heat stealing through his body, causing certain parts of his anatomy to behave in a most unorthodox fashion. Daniel closed his eyes and took some deep steadying breaths.

"I'm dressed." Vala's voice broke in on his thoughts. She stood, hands on hips, black T-shirt tied up in a knot over her taut stomach, towel loosely tucked around her hips. Her hair lay in a swathe across her shoulders.

No Hollywood actress at any awards ceremony had ever looked more beautiful to the archaeologist.

Stepping closer, hips swinging, she looked straight up into Daniel's face. Her lips were parted, eyes crinkling with humor and just a hint of something else. Trepidation? Sadness?

Daniel went to speak, found that he had no voice, swallowed noisily and tried again. After all of the years that he had known his fruitcake space pirate he suddenly found himself unable to form coherent sentences. Giving up on speech, he moved quickly, wrapping his arms around the woman in front of him, his gaze searching her face.

Vala now looked positively gleeful and wriggled in tight against him.

"I'm not interested in a one night stand," Daniel blurted out suddenly. "I'm not interested in sex – well, I am, but not just that. I mean, obviously, sex is fun – or would be fun, I don't know, it's been a long time – what I'm trying to say is..."

Vala stood on tip toe, and kissed Daniel gently but firmly. She moved her arms up to around his neck, and carried on kissing him for some considerable time. The archaeologist, to be fair, gave back as good as he got.

After several minutes Vala pulled away. She put a finger against Daniel's lips when he went to speak. "I'm not interested in a one night stand either, darling," she told him. "I am _very_ much interested in sex – if it's with you that is, and yes Daniel, it will be fun. I – I think the world of you.." she began to stumble over her words now as well. "I mean – I never wanted to say, or stay or – what I mean.."

"Do you love me?" Even now, Daniel was too scared to take that step, to be the first to say those three little words.

Vala held her breath. For one brief instant she wanted to run, to deny it all, to push him away. To go back to being the space pirate, the con-artist, the woman who never showed anyone her true self. Then the moment passed, and she realized that all of her years at the SGC had given her something that she'd never had before.

Hope.

"Yes Daniel," she choked out, voice catching. "I do. I do love you."

He felt as if someone had pulled a heavy weight from down deep in his soul and tossed it like a caber far, far away. The smile which lit up his whole face was electric. "Thank you," Daniel whispered, as he pulled Vala in as tight as possible, his face hidden in her hair. "And I love you – more than I can ever say."

It was very quiet in the office for the next few minutes – the two team mates eventually breaking apart to catch hold of the various pieces of traitorous clothing that threatened to tumble from their anatomy.

Vala grinned, as she tugged her towel back into position. "Your place or mine, darling?"

Daniel re-arranged his jacket-cum-kilt. "Yours, I guess. I'll bring my pack, I've got spare clothing inside." He made a grab for the alien again and held her close, just breathing in the scent of her. "I've been such an idiot."

Vala opened her mouth to answer him but was interrupted by a knock on the door. Before either of them could answer, Jack O'Neill pushed it open and meandered inside.

"Hi kids," he began, then frowned when he saw their state of undress.

"It's a relic," Daniel began hastily. He picked up the artifact and handed it to Jack. "It kind of misfired when we used it. There's nothing going on here, nothing at all."

"Yes there is," retorted Vala indignantly. She slapped Daniel quite forcefully. "Or are you telling big beefies?"

"I – what?"

"Beefies. Beef pies – it's what English people say if they think you're telling lies." Vala folded her arms, but there was a real look of hurt and betrayal on her face.

"Pork pies – lies," Daniel said, before pulling her tight into an embrace, right there in front of the General. "And yes, Jack, I'm telling lies. There is something going on here." He kissed the tip of Vala's nose. Her sweet face was wreathed in a huge smile.

"'Bout time," Jack grunted. He looked suitably un-surprised. "Walter owes me fifty bucks. Whadya say this doohickey does?" He twisted the stone into the other half of the small relic.

"Don't!" yelled Daniel, but it was too late.

Jack looked blankly as the two people in front of him lost their clothes for the second time. There was a brief silence before Vala chuckled loudly and snuggled in tightly against Daniel, who just dropped his head and closed his eyes.  
"I'll – er -." Jack handed Vala the artifact, eyebrows raised, before spinning on his heel and hurriedly exiting the office.

When Daniel opened his eyes again, it was to see Vala peeping up at him, a delightful little grin on her face. "So," she murmured, "this office is on level 18, and my quarters are on level 25. And the night shift must be here by now, so there's hardly anyone around. Mmmm?"

"Yeah," Daniel replied, a reluctant smile tugging at his mouth.

"And the fire escape is just down the hall there, right?"

"Yes."

"Well," Vala leaned back slightly and began to twirl her hair between her fingers. "How fast can you run?"

**The End!...or is it?**

**Well - if you get a 'Too Quick' then surely you need to have a 'Too Slow' somewhere around, right?**


End file.
